From Consortium NewsAs the United States takes the measure of Barack
Obama's first year in the White House and looks beyond to what could be a
difficult new decade, it might be useful to first stop and extract some lessons
from the 2000s, which proved to be a lost economic decade for many
Americans.

For the first time since the Great Depression, the
United States experienced zero job growth in a decade. Zero. And zero is
actually worse than it sounds since none of the preceding six decades registered
job growth of less than 20 percent.

By comparison, the 1970s, which are often bemoaned as
a time of economic stagflation and political malaise, registered a 27 percent
increase in jobs. Yet, in part because of that relatively slow rise in jobs
down from 31 percent in the 1960s American voters turned to Ronald Reagan and
his radical economic theories of tax cuts, global "free markets" and
deregulation.

Reagan sold Americans on his core vision: "Government
is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Through his
personal magnetism, Reagan turned taxes into a third rail of American politics.
He convinced many voters that the government's only important role was funding
the military.

Yet, instead of guiding the country to a bright new
day of economic vitality, Reagan's approach accelerated a de-industrialization
of the United States and a slump in the growth of American jobs, down to 20
percent during the 1980s.

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The percentage job increase for the 1990s stayed
at 20 percent, although job growth did pick up later in the decade under
Democrat Bill Clinton, who raised taxes and moderated some of Reagan's
approaches while still pushing "free trade" agreements and deregulation.

Hard-line Reaganomics returned with a vengeance under
George W. Bush more tax cuts, more faith in "free trade," more deregulation
and the Great American Job Engine finally started grinding to a halt. Zero
percent increase.

Despite the painful statistics of the past three
decades, Reaganomics remains a powerful force in American political life. Anyone
tuning in CNBC or picking up the Wall Street Journal would think that these
economic policies had enjoyed unqualified success.

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Though the downward economic spiral can be traced
over the past three decades, the facts are especially stark for the 2000s, the
so-called "Aughts" or perhaps more accurately the "Naughts."

"For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has
grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for
American households," wrote Neil Irwin in a
Jan. 2, 2010, review of comparative economic data for the Washington Post.
"But since 2000, the story is starkly different."

As the Post article and its accompanying graphics
show, the last decade's sad story wasn't just limited to the abysmal job
numbers.

U.S. economic output slowed to its worst pace since
the 1930s, rising only 17.8 percent in the 2000s, less than half the 38.1
percent increase in the despised 1970s. Household net worth declined 4
percent in the last decade, compared to a 28 percent rise in the 1970s. (All
figures were adjusted for inflation.)

Even Worse

As grim as those numbers were, the overall economic
legacies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush may be even worse.

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Not only did the Great American Job Engine grind to a
halt in the past decade, but the dire economic numbers were accompanied by
massive increases in federal debt, part of a risky right-wing strategy to
hamstring the government's ability to ever address domestic problems in the
future.

When Reagan took office, the total federal debt was
still under $1 trillion ($909 billion). By the end of the 12-year Republican
reign of Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the total debt had quadrupled.

The rise in the red ink leveled off under Democrat
Bill Clinton. Amazingly, he left office with the federal budget in the
black by $236 billion and with a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6
trillion.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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